


i put away childish things

by Starcrossedsky



Series: crimson was the blood that we shed [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: 5.3 spoilers, DRK WoL, Gen, NOT ambiguous wol, talking about dead villains after they die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:27:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25945831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starcrossedsky/pseuds/Starcrossedsky
Summary: The weight is yours to bear.But not alone.(Or: Emotionally processing 5.3 via my highly self-indulgent WoL, what of it.)
Relationships: Scions of the Seventh Dawn & Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Series: crimson was the blood that we shed [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1883116
Comments: 7
Kudos: 23





	i put away childish things

**Author's Note:**

> Part 1: This is my 5.3 reaction fic. It features the somewhat controversial take that Elidibus is and always was a child. If that isn't your take, cool! But you might not like this fic. Don't like don't read is in full force right now.
> 
> Part 2: sometimes your WoL is of an aegyl fan race and you made an unrelated jrpg a destroyed shard because you could. _technically_ this is a crossover with Tales of the Abyss, but there's only like... extremely vague elements that you don't need to really understand here so i didn't tag it. So whatever. You're going to deal with it.

"He was a child, Urianger."

The Bookman's Shelves is around three-quarters packed, and at your request, Urianger had shooed the pixies out to take a break. It's a good way to keep them focused anyway; like the children they are, pixies don't like to be at a task so boring as cleaning up for too long, even if Urianger has grown skilled at making a game of it.

He's not your first choice, of who to talk to. You would rather have talked to the person who was also there, and saw at least some of the same things you did, but, well...

With the pixies gone, you don't feel bad about having put the glowing vessel on the table, to let Urianger have a last look at it. You're not exactly comfortable letting it out of your hands, but it's only fair, for putting your friend through your venting. You can hardly take this to Feo Ul and expect them to _understand_.

Next to the soul of your dear friend lies the record of Azem, a warm yellow-orange still faintly radiating power. It was no surprise at all to discover that Ascians were behind the fashioning of the soul crystals you now carry a full pocket of, but it is another thing again to hold this one, with ancient memories of who you once were.

(And then there is the color, which made Asch burn with an ironic amusement, a chuckle that he might still be laughing over if he were not so angry that you feel fit to burst.)

"He was a _child_ ," you repeat, with more vehemence, a blend of anger and helpless sorrow, perhaps a spice of horror. "I didn't think it strange in the Echoes I got off him, because I'm so _damn_ used to looking up at this point, I didn't even _notice_ , but..."

The crouching figure of Elidibus had been so _small_ , compared to the rest of the Amaurotine shades. Even the illusion of a child that Emet-Selch had left eternally speaking in the square had been larger. If you had to guess, that child had been the equivalent of Ryne, perhaps a bit younger, on the cusp of the growth spurt to adult height. Old enough to not need parents or minding, if it came down to it.

Elidibus, meanwhile, had to have been a true child, to be that small.

It shakes in your chest, and you put your face in your hands, pushing hair out of your face. "Elidibus was a child, which means _Zodiark_ is a child," you say. Primals that form around the core of a specific person take on traits of that person, after all. 

(A dream of ice, a song of pain to blacken the very skies...)

"No wonder Hydaelyn is the _Mother_ crystal," you muse aloud. 

Urianger breaks his silence first with an intake of breath. "Of course," he says. "For what else would one call upon to fetter an unruly child...?"

You nod, and hop up on a table mostly cleared of books, your feet hanging free. There's no reason to hide your wings - you _haven't_ been hiding your wings - but at this point, you've grown used to not flying. It still helps you clear your head, though, to have your feet off the ground.

"But the worst part," you say, "is that... He said his _name_ was Elidibus. As though he had no other."

Urianger closes his eyes, pushing on his temple with his fingers. "Thou think him chosen for the role from birth?"

"It would fit," you say. "I don't have any proof, just a gut feeling."

"I suppose there is no longer any merit in that line of speculation," Urianger says. "But as to the rest... It would explain his volatile behaviour in these recent months, since the salvation of the First. Such... _tantrums_ ill become an adult, but for an immortal child..."

"They fit perfectly," you agree. "And... I can't even hold it against him. Lahabrea and Emet-Selch... He called them brothers, but they would have been more like his parents. The only adults left in his life."

Urianger is silent for a moment, deep in thought. Finally, he lifts his gaze to the crystal sitting on the table beside you. "And Emet-Selch yet still provided the means by which Elidibus met his end."

"...It's no different from the carers at the Inn, really," you say. "It was the last mercy he could offer. I was just the tool he set up to deliver the final blow."

Urianger raises his eyebrows, smiling faintly. "Yet I sense no objection within thee," he says lightly. "For one who doth protest so much at the machinations of others, thou accept this one in good humor, all things considered."

You think that weak smile might be mirrored on your own face. It's hard to tell, sometimes. "Well, he did promise his aid should we prove worthy," you say. For the first time, the anger in your breast at the Ascian, the grief that still rages in your other self for a lost world, is as silent and still as Ardbert's slumber. "I should hope I managed at least _that_ much."

"No doubt he would do naught but deny it, were he here," Urianger observes.

( _ **It's hard to stay angry at someone who saves your life**_ , the seventh shard of your soul observes, somewhere in the back of your mind. He's bitter, as always, but no longer quite so hateful on the subject. _**Even for me.**_ )

You shake your head. "I don't think so," you say. "He'd just complain about it taking so long."

\----

"And might I see the other crystal you've decided to carry?" Y'shtola asks, when you've retreated from the (normal, natural) light filtering through the forest trees.

You hand it over without question, watching curiously as she holds it up in front of her face. If you didn't know better, you'd think she was holding it up to the light.

"An ancient symbol of the sun," she says, before lowering the crystal and handing it back to you. "How fitting. I find myself of the opinion, based upon your account, that a certain Ascian sought to ensure his friend was remembered by any means possible. I had always thought 'Azeyma' and 'Azim' too similar for coincidence."

"No great stretch at this point," you say. "If Elidibus used himself as the basis for legends of heroes in... All of the shards, probably, there's no reason to think that the others didn't have some direct hand in the myths we know."

Y'shtola nods, folding her arms across her chest. "Would that we had another shard to sample from," she says. "Or even that more of the lore of the First was remembered. It's hard to draw any certain conclusions out of only our own world and the Ronkan Empire."

"If I ever get dragged to save another world, I'll be sure to take notes for you," you huff.

"Do try to avoid it," Y'shtola replies, amusement in her voice, coupled with that still-almost-strange softness she's gained in her time in the First. "Still..." she continues, musing. "A primal that was the very idea of a hero... It seems almost childish, doesn't it? One would think Elidibus would have been above such things at his age."

You hadn't even brought it up. You had thought she would be more interested in Azem, and so you had started with that. Now, the words take their time dying in your throat, bleeding out gruesomely in the back of your mouth until you can taste it.

"I think he was," you say. "A child, that is."

Y'shtola's eyes widen, and then she closes them in pained acceptance. "I wish that made less sense than it does," she says quietly. "I had thought it merely the result of such sudden grief, perhaps something of a backslide to the days immediately following the Sundering due to the loss, but never did I think..."

Her ears droop as she lifts her head to regard you again. "But then, I of all people should know how skilled we all are at ignoring anything that doesn't match the evidence of our eyes. Certainly he used adult bodies, but what bearing has that on the inner life of an Ascian?"

"Especially when he wanted to be seen as a savior," you say. "I can't imagine Ardbert and the others taking his promises to save their world seriously if they came out of the mouth of a kid."

"Nor I," Y'shtola agrees. "And it explains one other oddity - we know now that he rescued heroes of the Thirteenth beyond Unukalhai. Yet the one he showed most personal interest in was the child."

"I don't know if it's worse if he saw a reflection of himself, or just wanted a friend," you say. You hesitate, and then add, "Should we tell him?"

"That Elidibus is dead, or that the master who saved him was nothing more than another child all along?" Y'shtola asks. "To the first, I think you have some obligation, assuming he does not already know. He is unsettlingly knowing at times, our Unukalhai."

"I just hope he's able to grow up," you say. "That what happens to Elidibus is because he was bound to a primal, not because..."

"Because he had no body to age?" Y'shtola finishes for you. "Well. I cannot say if he will change physically, but given that the twins and Thancred seem to have met with little trouble growing up in their time in the First..."

You can't help how the inclusion of Thancred makes you snort. "And what does that say of you, Master Matoya?"

"I," Y'shtola starts, pausing to put her hands on her hips, "can still take you over my knee, young man."

Wisely, you cut your losses and make for Amh Araeng.

\----

You don't bother stopping in Twine long enough to ask about the trolley. It's not like the first time, when you had to worry about other people coming with you. You appear at the aetheryte and without further ado, sprint down the trolley rails, snapping your wings out just before the edge.

You allow yourself a moment of satisfaction at Thaffe's awed, "Wicked white, he _can_ fly with those things!" before flicking on the engine at your back and settling into an easy glide over the last chunk of the mountains. It's entirely possible that you've missed them, taking as long as you did with the others; perhaps you should have come after accompanying Alisaie.

But you're in luck. With the color restored to the sky, the red earth of Nabaath Araeng provides a stark backdrop to the two spots of white still among the ruins. You beat your wings once before you descend in a swift dive, snapping your wings open just at the last moment to settle mostly-gracefully to earth beside Ryne.

"Mind you call out next time," Thancred says, sheepishly dropping his hand away from his gunblade before shrugging at you. "I near about took you for a sin eater."

"Next time, I'll whistle," you say, which prompts Thancred into a faintly despairing shrug. "Ryne, will you be okay if I borrow this guy for a little while?"

"I'll be fine," she replies, frowning at you. "But if there's something I can do to help... I don't want you hiding things from me, all right?"

You suppose it is a little obvious that you're off-kilter, if Asch's speech patterns are bleeding so strongly into yours. "It isn't that I'm hiding it from you," you say quietly. "It just isn't a weight I want you to have to bear."

Ryne regards you seriously for a moment, and then nods. "Take care of him, then. If he passes out again, call out so I can help."

"She says, as though you aren't entirely capable of throwing me over your shoulders like a sack of popotoes," Thancred says. "Shall we walk, then?"

You nod, and lead him away from Ryne, until you're around the corner of a building from her and presumably out of earshot. Then you let your shoulders sag with a sigh.

"That bad, is it?" Thancred says. His jovial mask is gone, and you're relieved in a strange way. This Thancred, the one who has seen the darker side of life, who grew up in the underbelly of Limsa Lominsa and all its horrors, is the one you need right now. Urianger and Y'shtola can check your hypothesis for you, but they can't help you adjust the weight to make it easier to carry.

(You will not let anyone else carry it. It is yours to bear, and it weighs as it should.)

Your expression twists in a bitter smile. "Do you remember how we talked about how the Amaurot we saw seemed a little _too_ ideal?"

Thancred folds his arms. "I do," he says. "I take it something about your confrontation with Elidibus stripped away the paint. What did he say to you?"

"It isn't what he said," you say. "It's what he was. I..."

And it isn't just that he was a child. It isn't just that one part of you lost his name and the other was raised to give it up willingly. It's the sinking feeling of familiarity and understanding in your gut, the parts of Elidibus that he didn't see as wrong, but _you_ did, because you lived them.

"...They sacrificed a child," is what you finally manage to say. "They sacrificed their child and made him think it was an _honor_."

If this is the sin that lies at the heart of the world, the will of the star, then no wonder it keeps happening, over and over again.

(You could never burden Ryne, even above Alisaie and Alphinaud, with this. She already carries the other girls called Minfilia. You don't need to add another child's soul to her weight.)

And you can see that Thancred understands. He doesn't grow angry, or horrified, or even sad. The expression on his face is dark but unsurprised, pragmatic, the sort that has borne this kind of weight before.

"Do you regret it?" he asks. It's the right question.

"No," you say. "It was a mercy."

A child trapped, unable to grow up or change, and now alone. It _was _a mercy. Even if the fate of the world hadn't hung in the balance, the fate of your friends and your _self_ , even if he hadn't been trying to kill, you still would have done it.__

__(But the wages of mercy _are_ regrets. That's the only currency it pays in.)_ _

__"But I regret that it had to happen," you say. "I regret that there truly was no other ending."_ _

__"Blame Emet-Selch for that one, I suppose," Thancred says. "Just enough cooperation to get your hopes up."_ _

__You sigh, fluttering your wings before folding them around yourself. "And yet it wouldn't have been possible without him," you say. "Even if it's another thing I can never forgive him for."_ _

__(You won't seek forgiveness. Not from others, but equally, not within yourself.)_ _

__(Just because someone is dead, it doesn't mean that their sins disappear. You promised to remember, and that means remembering the whole, not just the parts that were or could have been good.)_ _

__"Nor should you," Thancred says. He folds his arms and levels a glare at the ground in front of his feet. "If you ask me? He set you up for it, an Ascian to the bitter end. The weight is his to bear, not yours."_ _

__"Perhaps so," you say. "But I'll bear it anyway. It's why we do the things we do."_ _

__It weighs as it should - lighter, on your heart. But someone still must carry it._ _

__Thancred sighs, his hands dropping to his side. "It's why we do what we do," he agrees._ _

__(Carrying the weight of the darkest things, so that other people don't have to stain their hands.)_ _

__(Not that one more stain on the blackened soul of an Ascian would matter, in the long run.)_ _

__You nod, and the weight is eased, for knowing that someone else understands._ _

__"Let's go back," you say. "Ryne will worry, and surely you have more goodbyes to say."_ _

__"None quite as important," Thancred says. "But you're right. I wouldn't want to cause Ryne any more grief; I daresay I've done enough of that already."_ _

__And with a last glance at the sky, unbroken beyond the edge of the Flood's wall, you go back._ _


End file.
